Print shows a hideous old maid standing at right before her chair, supported on a crutched stick, as she addresses a comic doctor at left, who faces her, much disconcerted, with his gold-headed cane pressed to his chin. Her dress is antiquated, with high-heeled shoes; one foot is swollen with "Gout", the other with "Chilblains", and is also distorted with "Corns". Her person and costume are covered with the names of diseases in appropriate places: "Lightness" (on a feather nodding from her head), "Head Ache", "Stupor", "Dizziness", "Palsy", "Ague", "Sore Throat", "St Vit. Dance", "Asthma", . etc. Medicine bottles on a table beside her are labelled "Miss Grunt" and "T- Grunt". A little dog, shaved in the French manner, barks at the doctor. The room is a comfortably furnished parlour, with an iron balcony outside a window reaching to the floor, with a background of trees
Alternative Title:
Walking hospital
Description:
Title from item., From the Laurie & Whittle series of Drolls., Two columns of etched verse beneath title: Im loaded with ev'ry disease, it is true ... You're welcome to all, Sweet Miss's adieu!, and Plate numbered "525" in the lower left corner.
Publisher:
Publish'd July 24, 1813, by Jas. Whittle, & Richd. H. Laurie, Fleet Street, London
"Three grotesquely ugly old maids stoop delightedly over a Cupid who sleeps against a rose-bush, arrow in hand, his unstrung bow beside him. On the back of one sits an ape; a lap-dog is beside her. A parrot sits on the bonnet of another, the third kneels. On a mound (right) a cock stands crowing: 'Cock a doodle doo.'"--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., "One of prints (coloured) by, after, or attributed to G. Cruikshank [many were closely copied and unless original and copy can be compared they are difficult to distinguish; some attributed by Reid or Cohn to Cruikshank are in the manner of the supposed copyist; some are probably by I. R. Cruikshank], from a set issued c. 1817 to c. 1819"--Curator's comments, British Museum online catalogue, registration no.: 1865,1111.2137., Sheet trimmed to plate mark., and Watermark: C. Wilmot 1815.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Topic):
Older people, Single women, Roses, Putti, Cupids, Monkeys, Dogs, Parrots, and Roosters